“The skeletons were all human though, not witches—“
She cut me off, “So were they. They had been promised something to lure them out there to help. But it wasn’t on this side of the slopes, hell, it might not have even been in this state. I don’t remember where they were from. I know that they had been missing for ten years and all of their families had presumed they were dead and filed for death certificates.”
I eased the car into the traffic that had formed to gawk at the explosion. “We know the house was owned by a vampire ten years ago because it came up on another part of the case.”
“Do you think they are connected?”
“I don’t know why a vampire would steal thumbs.” I shrugged one shoulder. “The bodies might have been dumped after the house was foreclosed. It’s hard to tell.”
“Did the ME determine cause of death?”
“Not yet. Jason’s working on it, but he and his team have twenty-five bodies to deal with. We know the cause of death of the corpses, but not the skeletons.” I focused on the road and not on her. I didn’t know how she was reacting to my notes or anything I was saying. Her voice remained professional with every response.
“I’ll be able to pull up my notes and go through them a bit more thoroughly and see if I can at least get a location.”
My phone rang and I hit the button to turn on the hands-free system. “Agent Collins speaking.”
“Abigail.” Mason’s voice came across the speaker. “I saw the bombing at PIB. Are you alright?”
I hadn’t been aware they had determined it was a bomb already. “I’m fine.”
“And Nick?”
I glanced at Agent Grace and she nodded in greeting. “I don’t know. He was in the building. No one was able to confirm or deny if he was on the way to the hospital or in a body bag.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I’m not allowed on scene yet. I’m on my way to pick up some paperwork from the bank on our landlord vampire. I was able to get a name from Levi and we have last known whereabouts on the human corpses. Nick was supposed to look into that.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Keep me updated on Nick. Will PIB put you with another agent on this case?”
I hoped not officially. “I don’t know. I don’t know if Boss Man was in the building or not, and he calls the shots.” I highly doubted that Boss Man survived the explosion if he had been on the top floor. “I called in Agent Grace to help with the skeleton case. You remember her?”
“I do, from the necromancy case. At least you’ll have help on one case.”
“I’ll be on scene tonight with Merick, so don’t be surprised. We’ll be performing some magic. I also have to go to a coven event tonight.” At which I’m sure I’d be questioned about what happened at PIB.
“You be safe. I don’t know if this had to do with the attack on your house or not, but I don’t like it.”
I don’t think anyone did. “Thanks. I’ll see you later. I’ll call if Merick and I learn anything new tonight.”
He disconnected without much of a goodbye. Agent Grace chuckled a little. “Not much of a talker, is he?”
“Nope. All business.” I pulled off of the street on to a side one to get to the bank. “I think this vampire has something to do with the blood-starved ones, but I can’t prove it yet. I’d run the name across Tomes, but I’m not a hundred percent sure he didn’t warn the vampire.”
“Do you think that’s who is behind the bombing? Mason mentioned your house was attacked as well.”
“I don’t think it was the same person. My house imploded, PIB exploded. Two different methods.” I tightened my hands on the wheel. “I think that it might have been a flunky of the vampire that attacked PIB. I was warned by a vampire agent that I shouldn’t pursue this case.”
“You don’t listen to warnings, do you?”
I could hear the smirk in her voice. “I don’t listen to threats. This is my job and I’ll get my bad guy.”
“Even if it means forfeiting your life?”
“Have you seen how many attacks there’s been on me in the last year? Clearly, it’s not my time.” Or I was cheating death. “But yes. That’s part of being PIB.”
“Dedicated agent, in and out.”
I couldn’t decipher if she was being sarcastic as I pulled into the bank. “I’m going to just run in and get the paperwork. If you want, I’ll take you back to your car.”
“Where are you going from here?”
I opened my door. “A coffee shop I guess, to go over my papers. I don’t have an office to work from.”
“My car will be fine. I have a PIB laptop so I can access the databases I need.”
I looked at her. “You have a laptop that can access the databases?”
“Yes. Doesn’t yours?”
“No, mine’s not PIB issued. You want to come to the coffee shop with me? I could use access to that database.” I was hoping her clearance was higher than mine, it was a possibility since she was originally an undercover agent.
She nodded. “If you think it’ll help with the case.”
“I think so. I’ll have new names to run.” And old ones, but that didn’t matter. I hadn’t given her the name of the vampire so she wouldn’t know.
“Sound good, we can go over notes together as well then.”
I smiled and shut the door. I had a new confidence to my step as I walked into the bank. A couple hours at the coffee shop and I might find some information on our vampire. Then I could call the hospital and see if I could get a location on Nick. Assuming the morgue didn’t call me first.
I walked up to the customer service desk of the bank. The hush of the air conditioning settled around me, dampening the soft sound of teller and customer voices. The lady smiled at me. “May I help you?”
“I’m Agent Collins, I talked the bank manager about some paperwork that I needed.”
She dug through a pile sitting next to her and pulled out a sealed manila envelope. “I just need to see your ID and your badge please.”
I pulled my badge off my belt and then my ID out of my wallet and handed them to her. While the customer representative took the information she needed I looked up at the screen above the tellers. What normally displayed bank advertisements and stock prices showed a silent screen filled with the flames of the PIB building. The caption underneath questioned if it was a terrorist attack.
“Horrible, isn’t it? An attack on a government building.”
I nodded and took my things back. “They only handle the paranormal government cases.” I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t thought about it being a terrorist attack. I assumed that it had to do with the cases.
“Maybe it’s the start of a supernatural vs human war.” She handed me the envelope. “You know, the conspiracy theorists are always talking about it.”
I shook my head. “There’s always a bit of discord between humans and supernatural creatures, but no war.” I took the envelope and walked out.
Melody had the door of the Hummer opened with my notes on her lap, flipping through the papers again.
“So the news is claiming terrorists.”
“Confirmed bombing?”
I shrugged. “I only read what the close captions said, so I don’t know.” I put the envelope in my bag. “Until I hear from an expert, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions. I’m sure we’ll all be briefed once the smoke clears. The media just likes to make people think they have answers.”
“To the coffee shop?” Melody asked.
“Yep, for now. I’ll give it a bit longer before I call the hospital.”
“My money is on the briefing being called before the hospital has everything in order.” She shut her door.
I waited until she was buckled before I started the engine. “I just want to know if Nick’s alright.”
“I know.” She sighed.
I waited for her to tell me to be patient, but it seemed like she thought better of it. I d
rove in silence to my favorite coffee place.
We pulled into a parking spot and got out. The lack of cars had me questioning if the shop was open, but then I remembered that it was barely lunchtime on a weekday. Most of their clientele were still at work. Walking in confirmed that. A person sat in the corner hunched over a laptop, while a man sat at one of the bigger tables with a sketch pad out, but other than that and the employees, the shop was empty.
The barista gave us a huge smile. “Hey, hope your day’s going well. I’ll be right with you.” She returned to making the drink order she was handling, my guess was for someone in the drive thru.
We waited only a minute to order and another couple for our drinks before taking the seats in the furthest corner. Melody pulled over a second table so we had room to spread out our notes and her laptop. She opened up the computer and typed in a password.
She flipped it around so that we both had access to it, but so the back was facing anyone that would walk by. “If we’re on this case together, there are no secrets.” She pegged me with a stare. “Understood.”
“You want me to be completely open with you, then I will, but I want your word that you’re not going to try to stop me.” I glanced at the computer.
“As long as it’s not something outside of PIB regulations and it’s not murder.” She grinned. “Trust me, there’s very little that’ll make me want to stop you.”
I nodded and handed her my paper with the notes on it. “That name there,” I pointed to Ira Diaz “keeps pulling up confidential and redacted information. Nick thought it was because he was close to the Vampire King.”
She inhaled sharp enough that she whistled a little. “That’s a bag of trouble right there. Are we sure this guy is related to the case? If we’re going to dig into those files you can’t have any doubt.”
“I have a picture of him with the first victim a century ago, Levi who can confirm that this is his MO and that it’s not the first time he’s done something like this. If I can confirm his alias, then I also have him at the scene of the press conference fiasco.” I started sorting through the bank paperwork. “I wouldn’t go after the information if I wasn’t sure. We’re not at the beginning of a case where we’re grasping at straws.”
She nodded and turned the computer towards her. Her fingers flew over the keys before she pulled out a smart card for a virtual private network. She slapped it into the slot on her computer and typed more.
“You don’t have the clearance for that. I do, and it’s not something that should be seen on a coffee shop network.” She turned the computer back to me. “I don’t know what you’re going to find, but if he has to do with the Vampire King there could be more information there than you want.”
I nodded and typed in the name, waiting for the system to kick back the search results. While it searched I looked at the bank paper, looking for the name on the loan. Once again I found the alias Johnny Smiths like I had predicted. “Well, we at least have the alias on two forms of paper.”
“That’s a start.” She turned the screen so we could both see the results. She clicked on the first one.
I smiled. “Look there, most of the redacted information is revealed.” With the exception of a few blacked out terms, which I assumed were names or locations. “It looks like they tried to go after this guy in another state for…human trafficking.” That was one way of describing what he had done. “Aliases…”
“Redacted.” Melody growled. “Really, why keep those hidden from my clearance but not his actual name?”
I exited out of the search window. “But we can cross reference it, if we type in the alias and it brings up the article we can assume that it’s one of them, right? It still searches the redacted terms.”
“Smart.” She watched as I hit enter and the same list of results came up.
“Bingo.” A thrill went through me, not a magical thrill, but one that told me we were on the right track. “We can now confirm who he is. Now all we have to do is find him and prove it was him that kept the people in the basement.”
“You have a witness, right? That can place him at the scene?”
“One living and one dead.” I kept my voice light.
Melody stopped what she was doing. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I know ghosts don’t hold up in court, but no, I’m not kidding, I do have a ghost who can place him there on both occasions. A victim of his.” I could do some more digging and see who had originally owned the house, and also who had been paying property taxes on it since the house was bought in cash. My next step though was to figure out who ran Calico research and why that was used as a front. “Why don’t you look into your old case while I just do some good old fashioned internet searching with my laptop?”
She nodded. “We’ll make progress while we wait.”
I knew what she was talking about, but I tried to force my mind away from thoughts of Nick and if he was alive or dead. I had a case to focus on and that’s what he would want. I pulled out my computer and connected to the Wi-Fi. I waited for my search engine to load while sipping my coffee.
The bombing of PIB was one of the trending searches already. I tried to ignore the distraction of searching for it and reading Internet articles. I put my curser in the search box and typed in ‘Calico research’. The results flooded quickly, starting with a domain name that matched the business and flowing down to reviews and complaints about the company.
I clicked on the business website. I’d expected to find an out of date website plagued with old graphics and bad coding, but that’s not what came up.
Brown and cream colors greeted me, with a fast loading page. The company’s name was spelled out in an actual calico pattern on top with a cat reading a book sitting at the end of it. A caption below the name read ‘providing quality social research for twenty years’ with seven locations listed.
One was just down the road from the mall with bold letters next to the address declaring it as new and accepting research subjects. I clicked on the information and Jerry showed up next to Ira in a row of pictures labeled staff. “I’ll be damned. He managed to lie through my truth spell.” Of course, maybe it wasn’t a lie, maybe he didn’t know the real name of the vampire. All he knew was the alias.
“Find something interesting?” Melody peeked over her computer. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
I turned the screen around. “That’s our vampire with one of my witnesses. On a brand new shiny webpage for a business I thought closed ten years ago.”
“I know him. He’s a shifter.” Her eyes widened a little. “Bit of a loner, but he likes to hunt as a wolf.”
“Bear with me, because other than how to subdue or kill a shifter and a werewolf, I’m still learning. Would a werewolf be able to tell if there is a shifter among them?”
“They might smell a difference, but probably not. I’ve never tried. Lycanthropes tend to be a bit more…unpredictable than shifters. We retain more of our human minds while in animal form. Why?”
“Well, five out of fifteen of our corpses were werewolves.”
“Have you contacted the local pack yet?”
I shook my head. “Tomorrow, after the full moon, I’ll call the pack leader, but I don’t want to disturb him tonight when he’s about to run with his pack.”
“Wise call. It’s possible that Jerry managed to work his way into the pack to lead some of them astray. I have a hard time imagining wolves volunteering for research.”
“Same with witches.” I muttered and started clicking through the website. “I think I need to check out Calico research.”
Melody clicked a few keys. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll have some more information on the other case.”
I started gathering up my papers while she did what she needed to do.
“Got it. Okay, ten years ago, it was the second case I was on. Ten missing, ransom note reported to PIB claiming that there was a supernatural creature taking humans hostage.�
� She turned the screen around. “There was only one ransom note and nothing else came of it. There weren’t any missing person reports that were turned in around the same time. The note wasn’t delivered to the families, it was delivered to PIB.”
I glanced through the report. “Says that the ransom note was delivered via mail carrier and demanded that PIB remove their location from this territory.” I blinked a few times. “That they didn’t belong there and humans would continue to go missing if they didn’t listen.”
She nodded. “But again, nothing came of it. PIB wasn’t going to move the office. My partner and I hit a dead end that was never resolved so it went into a cold case.”
“Until now.” I scrolled through the report. “Some thought it was the vampire ruler of the territory.”
She laughed. “Yeah, until we realized that Levi was handling a new teenage witch.” She pegged me with a twinkling look. “He had his hands full.”
No kidding, I wasn’t a great teenager and I was a super awkward witch. “This case never hit the media, did it?”
“No, we tried to keep it hush hush. We didn’t want to cause a massive scare. Levi had a feeling it might have been the local pack, but they were cleared too.”
That was odd, Levi always stressed trying to keep peace with the local pack. “I don’t know who was pack master then.”
“Another thing to ask the new pack master.” She made a note on the back of a piece of paper. “I’ll call the records building and have them pull the evidence box for me. We can go through it there, after we go to Calico research.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to take her there and it weirded me out that she suddenly stepped into partner aspect when Nick could still be very much alive. “I can handle Calico, why don’t you go through the evidence and we can compare notes later?”
“We’re in this together, Abby. Don’t worry, when Nick returns I’ll back off on everything but the thumbs case. Right now, though, your plate is too full to handle yourself.” She closed her computer and grabbed her phone.
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